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Dear Black Preachers

Some of you have some nerve. Don’t get me wrong, no one is perfect over this way and that shouldn’t even begin to be the retort for what I have to say, but some of y’all are fucked up.

I see you in your new Mercedez Benz and your fancy suits and your flashy jewelry. I see all of that under that velvety smooth ass robe. I see the matching gators, too. Don’t get me wrong, not a lot of you – but a great deal of you – can’t ball out of control like that, but you try, you try and when you think about it, that’s just as fucked up as the ones who can.

Luke 12:15: “And He said to them, ‘Take heed and beware of covetousness, for one’s life does not consist in the abundance of the things he possesses.’”

You and along 10 other preachers on that same street can’t do a damn thing for the community you’re siphoning from? Not even a community garden? You don’t even have the decency to pave the parking lot to park your Benz or Maserati in? Nah! No one cares about that. Jesus isn’t in the parking lot or on the curb. The congregation doesn’t care about no pot holes! Jesus’ll fill ’em! They damn sure don’t care about what’s going on around them, either. You fill your pockets full of money from families who could have used that money for food and bills. But since they believe that god will make it alright for them, they just willingly do it. Most of you know it’s wrong. You take and take and take but barely do you ever give. God isn’t your personal savior in no other means than the almighty dollar. The others? Money and the perfect platform to shout their bigoted, misogynistic, homophobic rhetoric to the naive and delusional congregation. You hide behind a “Well, Jesus said, or I think [he] did” facade as a reason to spout such nonsense.

Ecclesiastes 5:10: “He who loves money will not be satisfied with money, nor he who loves abundance with its income. This too is vanity.

You kill me how you boast about how you got 50 people to foot a coach bus to take a trip to a damn casino like that’s something to boast about. I would ask if you actually read the bible, but that’s pretty redundant at this point. You’re not in it for Jesus in the first damn place.

Mark 8:36: “For what will it profit a man if he gains the whole world, and loses his own soul?”

Hey, you. I know I probably lost you by now, with all the bible scriptures you didn’t know existed. I didn’t even have to mention the camel but listen you’re doing your black communities a disservice.

It’s bad enough that another sect of sheep called the Jehovah’s Witnesses do drive-by soliciting. They would straight pull up on you in the dead of winter, roll down the window, be on the wrong side of the street just to ask you if they can give you something, something to fucking read. Don’t even bother to talk about what they want you to take from them. What if you have questions? Is there some quota they have to meet with Jesus through a lifelong binding contract or they go to hell? No telling what’s motivating these old ladies. They fill up the ‘Free Little Libraries’, not with books of anything other than ‘The Book of Mormon’ or ‘The Watchtower’ and every time I take that shit and throw it in the garbage. It’s bad enough when they do it, that’s the only time you’ll see them in the community. They’re too busy worried about what other people are doing in public which has been shown in the bible, that you’re supposed to do in private. Enough is enough!

It’s stated that black churches are collecting billions from their communities, but there aren’t any new job creations or opportunities. There’s no excuse for the abandoned buildings and businesses, and homes, too. You expect us to sit in church from 10:30 to 1:30 and listen to you, shake around and make noises in the pews for you, play in your choirs and indoctrinate your children with bible study, but you can’t do a damn thing for the people you’re sucking the life out of? You know what it’s helping? Gentrification.

With all that money you’re making by making them tithe EVERY Sunday and in some cases Thursday and Saturday, you can mentor them on saving that 10%, but that’s too much like right. That mean you don’t get any. That’s not including all the functions and “dinners” that tithe envelopes and money trays are passed around. That’s not ‘church’, why am I paying you for just being a part of the church community?

You prey on their hardship. You use that as your foundation in your sermons. You use that as a hook and lure to get them to hand over their money. It’s always about the money.

Then you have pastors like Eddie Long who molested children. Nothing worse than a pastor preying on its flock instead of protecting them, teaching them.

It’s quite disheartening to see so many of you pimp pastors taking advantage of so many people. You’re reaping all of the benefits.

“Come as you are! But you bitch, you better have my money!”

To the churches and pastors that at least try, you can do better, too. Nothing is stopping you from calling bullshit for what it is. Turning a blind cheek because it’s not affecting you at all is how we got in this mess. Nonchalantly sweeping more and more shit under the rug is doing no one any favors. Eventually, that rug will have too much shit under it and everyone will begin to notice.